What did corn and cantaloupe have to do with penicillin?

By Chelsie Vandaveer

July 29, 2003

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Peptidoglycan is a polymer built of proteins and oligosaccharides. It is the main constituent of the cell wall of bacteria. Gram negative bacteria have an inner membrane, a thin wall of peptidoglycan, and an outer membrane; gram positive bacteria have an inner cell membrane surrounded by a thick layer of peptidoglycan. (Molecular Cell Biology, J. Darnell, H. Lodish, and D. Baltimore, Scientific American Books, W.H. Freeman and Co.,
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In 1928, Alexander Fleming at St. Mary's Hospital in London noticed
a clear area on a culture of Staphylococcus aureus, gram positive bacteria.
The media was contaminated by a mold. The mold is now famous,
Penicillium notatum. Alexander Fleming circa 1945
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1990)

In 1928, Alexander Fleming at St. Mary's Hospital in London noticed a clear area on a culture of Staphylococcus aureus, gram positive bacteria. The media was contaminated by a mold. The mold is now famous, Penicillium notatum. It produced the first recognized antibiotic, "against life"; Fleming named it penicillin.

An interesting scientific curiosity, penicillin was not an overnight success. No one could think of any practical application. It would be one of Fleming's students, Cecil Paine, to demonstrate that penicillin could be used to treat infections. (Penicillin, the Wonder Drug, George J. Wong, Botany Department, University of Hawaii)

Penicillin acts on gram positive bacteria. It has little effect on fully developed bacteria. Its activity is on newly divided cells. Penicillin prevents the peptidoglycan from forming crosslinks between the peptide chains. The cell walls are weak and flimsy; the bacteria cannot survive.

Howard Florey Injects Penicillin into the Tail of a Mouse

The development of large scale penicillin production
was undertaken by Howard Florey and
Ernst Chain in England.
Howard Florey Injects Penicillin into the Tail of a Mouse
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The development of large scale penicillin production was undertaken by Howard Florey and Ernst Chain in England. World War II intervened. Worried that the research lab could be bombed, Florey and Chain moved the study to the Northern Regional Research Laboratory (NRRL) in Peoria, Illinois.

Penicillium notatum is not an efficient penicillin producer. The lab began culturing the mold in corn steep liquor, a brown semi-liquid from steeping corn in water and sulfur dioxide, a product readily available in the Midwest. Production increased, but was still not sufficient to handle the need. The scientists began searching for a Penicillium species that would make more of the antibiotic.

Penicillium samples were collected worldwide and sent to the NRRL. Of all the testing done on all the samples, the Penicillium they needed was found on a rotten cantaloupe from a market in Peoria. Penicillium chrysogenum produced 200 times more penicillin. (Penicillin, the Miracle Drug, Samit Bhandari, Washington Middle School, Peoria, Illinois)

Penicillium chrysogenum has been mutated to a more efficient variety; the penicillin molecule is altered to cause fewer allergic reactions and side-effects. But the descendents from that moldy cantaloupe and the corn steep liquor method are still used to produce penicillin.

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia has information on Penicillin explaining technical details and a diagram of the Penicillin nucleus. To learn more about Penicillin, click on the link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penicillin

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